ABSTRACT
The “Ronda de la Hispanidad” footbridge has just been built in Zaragoza. This structure has an innovative design, which has been made possible by the extensive use of steel hollow sections. Three aspects are mainly addressed in this paper: design, analysis and structural behaviour. Design is characterized by the use of two arches laying in inclined planes. Structural analysis is very much conditioned by non-standard problems, many of them related to the use of tubular elements and, specially, to the connections of these tubular elements to the rest of the structure. The static and dynamic behaviour of this footbridge has been carefully studied. Static asymmetric loads are important in a static scheme that so clearly departs from standard, well-tested, schemes. Dynamic loads are also studied and tested to check that the accelerations under service loads are acceptable to pedestrians.
